He paused, sweeping a piercing stare across the gathered officers.
‘My predecessor seems to have spent altogether too much time in leisure, and nowhere near enough up here keeping tabs on the barbarians, as a result of which we find ourselves here today while he finds himself ordered back to Rome.’
He paused again, looking around his assembled officers.
‘Where, gentlemen, he will find himself in a distinctly unhappy position – as might we all if we fail to put down this revolt quickly and without further serious loss. This isn’t an emperor to take failure easily, gentlemen, not when Praetorian Prefect Perennis, who as some of you will know is the man standing behind the throne, discovers that his son was a casualty of the opening battle of the war. Failure is therefore not an acceptable option for any of us. These next few weeks before the winter starts to close in are going to be hard and dirty for all concerned, and by the end of this campaigning season I’m firmly expecting that we’ll have this man Calgus’s head, either on the end of a chain or in a jar headed for Rome by fast courier. Either will do. The only question that needs answering right now is how we’re going to achieve that.’
He paused again, turning to his staff officer.
‘Map.’
The map was unrolled and spread across the table in front of the senior officers. Marcellus looked around the group gathered at the table.
‘All told we have some twenty-two thousand spears to put into the field. Our intelligence, including information from some sources rather closer to Calgus than he could ever suspect, tells us that he has no more than fifteen thousand men at best, so once we get them to commit to a straight fight it’ll be over quickly enough. However, and this is going to be the moot point of this campaign, any engagement with these barbarians must, must, take place on favourable ground.’
The officers round the table nodded solemnly. The battle of Lost Eagle and its grisly aftermath for both sides were still a raw memory for them all.
‘We want Calgus to bring his fifteen thousand out on to open ground, give us time to get our twenty thousand into line and then mince his men up in the usual style. He, on the other hand, being a clever brute, wants us to advance eagerly on to ground of his choosing – forest, broken ground, anywhere that our tactics don’t work half as well – and then set his dogs loose on us from several directions. We’re going to be gathering round this table every night of the campaign, gentlemen, and I’m going to be expecting you to bring me every idea under the sun to make Calgus ignore his instincts and come out to meet us before the winter sets in, especially as he gets near the limits of his supplies. I have no intention of reporting back to the emperor that we’ve had to settle in for the winter without a victory, preferably one that ends this squalid little war here and now. So you’d all better get thinking.’
He pointed to the map, indicating Noisy Valley’s position two miles south of the junction of the north road and the military road.
‘So now we’re ready to strike north up the main road and into the mountains to the north-east, such as they are. We suspect that
Calgus has his warband camped somewhere around here, on the southern slopes of the range, hidden deep in the forests. Our first task is to find his warband, so there’ll be a broad screen of cavalry out in front of the main force probing forward, seeking contact. Once we’ve got them located the next trick will be to either draw them out into the open or, if we can’t manage that feat, fix them for long enough that Sixth and Twentieth legions can bring their strength to bear on their defences in a classic siege. While we’re doing that we’ll patrol aggressively to either flank just to make sure the locals keep their heads down and let us get on with it unmolested. That ought to give the auxiliary cohorts something to keep them out of mischief
…’
5
The next day dawned brightly, and Calgus mustered the tribal leaders once the morning meal had been taken. The command had gone out for every man to be ready to march, with his war gear and a day’s food, and there was a palpable tension in the air as the gathered chieftains watched him stalk into their midst, his bodyguards looking about them with poorly disguised anxiety at the hostile faces around them. Calgus turned to survey the scene, taking the measure of the men gathered at his command. The tribal leaders stood impassively for the most part, many of them with sour looks that told him they would rather be elsewhere; only the men of his own Selgovae tribe had raised a cheer when he entered their circle. The other tribes, he judged, had at last realised that a war fought in what appeared primarily to be his people’s best interests would not necessarily be good for them.
‘Brothers…’ Calgus paused, waiting for any reaction from the gathered mass of warriors, but none came. ‘… you have delivered a hammer-blow to the men that seek to invade our land, subjugate our people and strip us of both our wealth and our dignity! We have already defeated one legion in battle, and forced the Romans to scrape up every spare soldier in the northern half of their empire in order to put their boot back on this province’s throat. I know that some of you are saying that we have done little more than pull the tail of a dangerous beast, provoking it to strike back at us with all of its power… and in truth you are both right and wrong. Do the Romans still have three full legions in Britannia? Yes! Does the bulk of that strength lurk, waiting to strike out and crush us, and within two days’ march of this encampment? Of course it does!’ He had their attention now; he knew it even without staring round at the faces surrounding him.
‘Ask yourselves, however, what would happen if we managed to repeat that trick, and crush another of their legions in the same way. What then, when there are no more replacement soldiers to be had?’ He allowed the silence to build, looking around him with a broad grin, watching realisation starting to dawn on the men around him. ‘Three legions, my brothers, that’s all they have. There will be no further reinforcement from over the sea. If we break one more legion they will be unable to replace it, not now that every available man in the northern empire is already in this province. The Roman governor will be faced with a stark choice, to defend their wall with only two legions, and one of those needed in the south to keep the western tribes under control, or to retreat south by a hundred miles, and form a new line of defence based on the fortresses of Yew Grove and Fortress Deva. An indefensible line, with a mountain range running straight through the middle and the whole of the Brigantes tribe south of their wall suddenly liberated to join the rebellion and to double our strength in fighting men. The governor will try to hold on, to wait for eventual reinforcement rather than face the disgrace of abandoning a wall built by an emperor and making their defence of Britannia impossible. And he will be doomed to fail.’
Now was the critical moment in his oration, his chance to grab the men around him by the balls.
‘My brothers, if we can just take down one of the legions facing us there will be no more reinforcement for their northern frontier, and their general will be forced to make the terrible choice I have described to you. And this whole country will fall to us like an apple whose time on the tree has come to its end. We will be free to take back the wealth they have stolen from us, free to travel wherever we wish without needing their permission. Free to live the way we choose, without their legions forever forcing us to live by their rules.’ He waited for a moment, turning to look around his audience. Every man’s eyes were locked on to him, and in each face he saw nothing like the apathy of five minutes before. Nearly.
‘So, how do we destroy another legion? First, my brothers, we are going to anger the Romans, by taking our war to them in a way that they will neither predict nor be able to tolerate. Tonight will be a fat moon by which we will be able to make our way to their wall, and cross it undetected. Nightfall today will see us in position to strike at a border fort, to mount a swift and terrible attack that will destroy both fort and garrison, and by tomorrow evening we will have returned here in triumph. Of course, their cavalry will outpace the legions in the search for us as we retreat back here, they will find our trail and follow it here, bringing the legions in their wake, but that is exactly what we want them to do. When they think they have us trapped, that will be the moment for our greater trap to be sprung.’
‘And this greater trap, Calgus. Just what would that consist of?’
The question came from Brennus. Of course.
‘Powerful allies, King Brennus. Powerful enough to smash a legion with the shock of their attack, if that legion is stretched to besiege us here as I expect.’
